


Work in the Groove

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Baby Driver (2017)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Music, Musicians, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13039032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: Even without a job, Baby's not short of things to do.





	Work in the Groove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [3pipeproblem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/3pipeproblem/gifts).



_Apple iPod Nano, 5th gen, green, translucent silicone case, no headphones. Most played song:_[One More Night,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sw2JJ5nSbM) _Michael Kiwanuka_

The great thing about mp3 players, Baby had decided, was that they were outdated almost as soon as their box was opened. Sucked for the people who wanted the latest thing, but it was great for Baby. The earliest models weren't worth much, but after the second or third generation of iPods you got a stable device, good memory.

The best ones were the ones that left behind a little bit of the previous owner's personality. The Zune covered with tiny alien-head stickers. The iPod whose playlist could have been put together by Joseph, back in his hearing days, if they'd had iPods then. The ZipClip where every song description was in Cyrillic (Baby had spent a few hours identifying the songs that weren't recognizable, most of them Russian pop from the years after the Berlin Wall fell). He might not know their faces or names, but he knew something about them, just from the little squares of plastic in his hand.

Tapes weren't hard to come by; sometimes he even found them set out on the curb.

Records were trickier. Joseph told him he missed out on the years when records were cheap, though he'd grabbed all he could as stores cleared out their bins to make room for CD longboxes. Joseph had a few longboxes too, whose liner notes or packaging was too good to throw out. He'd had to rotate a lot of stuff out over the years, and when his hearing took its final dive he'd gotten rid of 'the soft stuff,' anything that didn't have distinct enough bass or beats to feel. _May have overcorrected a little, he said, but I moved a lot back then, too. Records are **heavy.**  
_

_I should have been there to help carry them,_ Baby said.

_You had your own family to carry for, back then._ Joseph had reached out his hand, squeezed it.

It was years before Joseph and his wife Chantal had realized what Baby's life had been before the accident, that he missed one parent more than the other and sometimes felt guilty about it. That he sometimes put on his mom's songs, but never anything his dad had played. At least, it was years before Baby figured out that Joseph and Chantal had figured it out. Even then, they'd never really talked about it. Baby hadn't wanted to.  
Today hadn't brought up much; one of the pawn shops had a 4th gen [RED] Nano with a ton of 70s funk and soul, but most of it was stuff he already owned, and it was priced about twenty bucks higher than it should have been. He did find Joseph a copy of Shaft with closed captions, though, so it wasn't a total loss, and one cassette with a band name that looked familiar.

It'd been almost a month without a job from Doc. Baby wasn't dumb enough to think Doc wasn't going to call again, but he was grateful enough for the break. He picked up some extra cash helping the next-door neighbors move (they were headed to Arizona, where their son was living) and cleaning at the bodega down the street while their grandson was at summer camp.

Sometimes, when there was a big gap between jobs, Baby started wondering what a normal life would be like. 9-to-5 job. Taxes. Savings accounts. It was like when he was ten and pretending he'd be a superhero someday. It was fun to dream about, but it wasn't real.

Joseph was watching TV when he came in. He got Joseph's attention and asked, _What’s on?  
_

_Just bad news,_ Joseph said. _Find anything good?_

Baby pulled the DVD out from under his jacket.

_Nice._

_I hear that Shaft is one bad mother--_

_Hush your mouth,_ Joseph said, only half kidding. _You don't need to use that language._

Baby rolled his eyes, affectionately. _Want to watch?  
_

_Want to finish the news. What are you up to?  
_

_Work on my music if you don't need anything.  
_

_I'm fine, you have some fun._

**

_Silver iPod shuffle, 4th gen, no case, original headphones. Most played song:_[More than I Can Say,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4btyYgIEX6A) _Sky Simon, live at Smith's Olde Bar._

He could spend hours mixing audio. When he was at the deck, headphones in, nothing else got through. It was the next best thing to driving, and didn't stress out Joseph the way work did. And Joseph wasn't getting any younger. Leaving him alone wasn’t as easy as it used to be, when his foster father had been in better health.

And when Joseph got sick, taking care of him was a job in itself. Hospitals never had good interpreters, which meant Baby spent hours arguing with doctors and nurses and trying to explain to the assistants in Dietary that the peanut butter had to be spread all the way out to the crusts.

As much as he liked driving--liked the adrenaline rush, needed the money--he knew Joseph needed him around, too. A dead or arrested Baby meant Joseph would be in assisted living, if he was lucky. More likely a nursing home. And that was if he didn't go into insulin shock before anyone found him…

He turned up the music. No reason to worry about that now. He could just lose himself in the beat. Later, he'd need to make dinner, maybe watch __Shaft_ _ with Joseph.

Joseph tried to talk him into going out, sometimes, meeting someone. But how could he even begin to talk to someone? __Hey. My name's Baby. I live with my foster dad, but mostly I help people I don't like steal things. I'm good at it. Sometimes I wish I wasn't as good at it as I am, but usually I don't wish that.__

__Usually I'm proud._ _

Yeah. He wasn’t going to be using that as a pickup line any time soon.

**

__Red Sansa Fuse, black case with Spider-Man sticker, red Skullcandy headphones. Most played song:__ [I Got My Mojo Working,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txxn5mI8wy8) __The Capitols._ _

Back when he was in high school, people asked him how he could spend so much time with Joseph, like it was some kind of burden. He could never explain how much he owed Joseph. Even if he'd been good with words, there was no way to make people understand what it meant to have someone who understood the endless drone in his ear, who could empathize when someone shouted at you like more noise would make their words seem clearer.

Even the social worker had asked him once if he was happy where he was, if, now that he was 'adjusted to his disability,' he should be in another foster home, maybe closer to his peers. Baby wasn't sure if that meant 'more kids' or 'more white people,' but either way the answer was the same. His home was with Chantal and Joseph.

It was about time to start dinner when he finished his mix. _ __What do you want?__ _

___What, to eat?_ _ _

___Yeah, to eat._ _ _

Joseph thought it over. _ __How 'bout we do something different tonight?__ _

___What did you have in mind?_ _ _

What Joseph had in mind was Fatt Matt's, where he'd drummed for years, and where his old friends had decided to get together and jam. Baby ordered a half slab of ribs and rum baked beans and settled in, bad ear by the speaker, where no one else bothered sitting. Perfect spot for Baby. Joseph sat next to him, with a plate that was almost identical, except for fewer ribs and an extra helping of collard greens.

There were a bunch of tourists tonight, but they were in good moods, eager to listen to the music, and the walls shook gently with the pulse of the bass. Joseph got him a beer, and the ribs were hot and good like they always were at Fatt Matt's. Joseph drummed along, his fingers tapping the table, until his friend Earl and Earl's grandson Tim--a few years older than Baby, working construction in Augusta but home for the weekend--each grabbed an arm of Joseph's chair and pulled him up onstage.

In the end, they closed the place down, and Tim gave them a ride home and helped Joseph back into the apartment. "Oh, hey," Baby said, as they unlocked the door and let Joseph roll in. "Almost forgot, scored something at the pawn shop today." He ran back to his deck, grabbed the cassette from earlier. "Your grandpa's band. Think it's from the eighties. Pretty sure Joseph's on it too, but I already made a copy."

"Hey, man, thanks." Tim clapped his shoulder. "You guys okay?"

"Yeah," Baby said. "We're good. Thanks."

"Good to see you, man. You need to get out more often."

"Probably." But Joseph was fading fast. And most of Joseph's friends weren't any younger than he was. Still, he shook Tim's hand and was grateful for the help, and for the good night they'd given Joseph.

___Sorry I'm so much work,_ __ Joseph said, as Baby helped him into bed.

___You're not. That was a good idea. I'm glad we went._ _ _

___Me too._ _ _

He was getting into his own bed when his phone buzzed: the other one, Doc's. So much for his time off. Tomorrow he'd get the coffee, go back to his routine.

He could already feel the wheel under his hands.

It wasn't a bad life, not really.

He put his headphones in and went to sleep.

_2nd Generation iPod touch, custom purple paisley case, broken Bose headphones. Most played song:_ [Love Ballad,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZHgUQqiWDI) _L.T.D._


End file.
